What do you buy for the Wayne Gretzky who has everything on his 50th birthday?

If you're the National Hockey League, maybe you start by writing a cheque for the $8 million or so dollars that were never paid out in the bankruptcy proceedings of the Phoenix Coyotes, wrap it all up in a birthday card and call it a day.

Maybe you start by making peace with The Great One, the most important NHL player in modern history, by doing the right thing, the overdue thing, to bring him back to your hockey family, making good on a debt the league essentially strung him out on.

Gretzky, as is his custom, has taken the high road on the matter of the millions he walked away from, after being deemed an unsecured creditor in Phoenix. That's what he does in most situations, avoids controversy, and fortunately for him, it's what he can afford to do financially. He could have sued the league. He certainly could have gone public and embarrassed the league.

Good soldier

Instead, as the career good soldier, he went quietly and rather inconspiciously away and removed himself from the Coyotes franchise and from the business of NHL hockey.

Today is Gretzky's 50th birthday - like you didn't know - and what better time for an on-the-rise NHL to come to terms with a debt that only makes them look weak. This is one day after an NHL press release indicated just how well the league is, in fact, doing.

For all we like to scream about trouble here and trouble there in the hockey world, the NHL release tells a different story. Their story. These are their words. This is expected to be the highest revenue season in hockey history. Sponsorship revenue is up 32%. Advertising on nhl.com and the NHL Network is up 55%. League-generated revenue is expected to grow 14% over last year and last year was a pretty impressive year economically. In the past four years, in an economic downturn, NHL revenues have increased by 85%.

Which should mean that writing a cheque for Gretzky would be a rather simple piece of business. A birthday present and a peace offering all at the same time.

He is, at least, part of the reason there are three NHL teams in Calfiornia, not just the one he started with. He is, at least, part of the reason why there are more young Americans playing hockey than ever before, the numbers are on the rise annually. He is, at least, part of the reason why youth hockey is on the upswing in California and there are now first-round draft picks coming out of one of the least likely of states.

For all we like to attach to Gretzky about being the great Canadian - he's lived 24 of his 50 years in the U.S. - he has had a greater impact on American hockey, on the growth of American franchises, rightly or wrongly in the NHL, on the southern expansion of the game, than he has, truly, on anything Canadian. In fact, you can make a case that if Gretzky never came along, and the NHL never went big time, there would still be franchises in Quebec City and Winnipeg. But the symbol of Gretzky and Canadian hockey lives, as all the 50th birthday tributes in print, radio and television have proven in recent days.

In the case of Gretzky vs. the NHL, the Great One did nothing wrong and also nothing right. He coached the Phoenix Coyotes. He was to be a part-owner of the team. He was paid hugely for learning on the job. But when he put aside his salary for the good of an operation running out of money, and because he could afford it, that changed everything. That meant he was owed, the way Mario Lemieux was once owed in Pittsburgh. The league didn't make good with Lemieux, either, in that situation. Lemieux was wise enough to make his own ownership in a better market work for him.

Gretzky didn't have any kind of similar opportunity.

Now as the previous Phoenix owner sues the NHL and the NHL sues back, the Gretzky money gets volleyed around as a part of legal sport. In the meantime, nobody wins. The NHL has a chance to make good with their greatest star. League revenue this year will be just under $3 billion. Why not take $8 million from that - or whatever the exact figure is - and send Wayne Gretzky a birthday present? It's long overdue.